Not An Option
by Cofkett
Summary: She fights the thought before she can allow it to form properly; clamps down on it. They've faced death so many times and won. This time is no different, she tries to convince herself. Tries and fails because this time feels different. - - Insert for Valkyrie. Don't read this until you've seen that. Major spoilers. No smut, just a sentence near the end that's not for kiddies.


**I already had this in my head after watching Valkyrie but I read companion stories Ashes to Ashes by KyinHI and Dust to Dust by BWJournal and I feel like some of their beautiful words may have influenced the writing of this story to some extent; so I feel it's worth acknowledging them. I tried to stick to my new style of just writing the dialogue and the action, but I couldn't help it. I wrote feelings.**

She stopped, just short of the door to her boss's office, willing herself to stay calm, to breathe. With one last forced inhalation of oxygen, she entered, keeping her hand steady on the door handle. She stood with her back to her boss for a moment. She was anxious to hear that Castle was clean; but if he wasn't...

Part of her didn't want to know. Part of her thought if she didn't hear it, somehow it wouldn't be true. Once she knew it would be real. She hated that she couldn't call to warn him; hated that she couldn't be there.

She'd gotten a frantic call from Martha; she had to assure her that Castle wasn't in trouble. Of course, out of context that was a lie; he was possibly in a great deal of trouble; but she'd let Martha know she could cancel that lawyer. If only this could be solved with Castle's money and influence.

She wondered if he was scared when those agents appeared at his door and took him away, not knowing why. The idea that he could spend his last day in fear...

_No._

She fought the thought before she could allow it to form properly; clamped down on it because they've faced death so many times and won, faced gun-fire, explosions, drowning, radiation poisoning, temperatures so low her blood nearly froze over. This time was no different, she tried to convince herself. Tried and failed because this time _felt _different.

She cursed her instincts. She'd never wished so hard for her instincts to be wrong.

"Beckett?" Villante said.

Beckett exhaled and turned around. Villante was sitting at his desk. McCord was sitting in front of him, her face turned towards Beckett. There was an empty chair next to her.

Beckett looked him in the eye.  
"Sir?" she replied, forcing herself to look him in the eye. If she let herself, her eyes would dart from him to McCord. If she let herself, she'd pace his office. No, actually, if she let herself she'd take her boss by the collar and demand to hear if Castle was going to be ok. But that would be inappropriate workplace behaviour.

She didn't know for sure yet that the toxin was in his system. He could be fine. She held onto that thought, took comfort in it; what little comfort it brought.

"Why don't you take a seat?" Villante said.

Her gut clenched in that moment. Because if Castle was ok, Villante would say so; he wouldn't ask her to sit down. He was trying to break it to her gently, trying to ease her into it, and that's why McCord was there: to handle her - to "comfort" her. She felt like she was going to be sick, but she did as he said, keeping her eyes dead ahead, because there was still a chance he could be ok, she told herself.

_There's still a chance._

_"_Preliminary results of the blood test have come back," Villante said.

Beckett nodded, chewing her lip to keep everything threatening to overwhelm her inside.

"Mr. Castle tested positive for dangerously high levels of the toxin."

She rolled her lip from between her teeth with her tongue and her hands gripped the table. She was trying very hard to keep her breathing steady, to not let his words be her downfall.

"How long?" she asked.

Villante appeared sympathetic but remained professional.  
"Based on the amount, the lab technicians estimate he has somewhere between fifteen and twenty hours to live."

She nodded slowly, trying to distance herself from the emotion so that she could get the information she needed, trying to stay level-headed. But how could she possibly distance herself? It was Castle.

"That's not enough time to find an antidote, is it?"

"They're definitely going to try, but we're not optimistic," Villante said. "We have our hands on all the information cultivated in _Dreamworld_ about the formula. They didn't have an antidote; it's one of the reasons the project was abolished. But, the technicians have found that the toxin in your fiancé's system has been modified from the original formula."

"Modified? How?" It was one thing to know your enemy; but if they'd added something unknown, it would be even harder to save him.

"They've perfected it; made it more efficient," Villante said. "Whoever's been working on this knows what they're doing, which leads us to believe they may have an antidote. If it is possible to save him, finding these people is the key."

"Then find them." She knew it was not her place to make demands but he was probably going to take her off the case any way so what did it matter?

"Agent Beckett, because of the conflict of interest, we're going to have to restrict your involvement in this case."

"Restrict?" Beckett echoed, surprised. "Sir, you're not going to take me off the case all together?"

Villante nodded slowly, searching for the right choice of words.  
"We'll keep you informed of events, consult your opinion, but you will not be investigating. I'm sorry."

"I understand," Beckett said. "It's against policy. Thank you, Sir. "

_I'll just investigate on my own time behind your back using the information you give me._

McCord spoke for the first time and when she did it was in that soothing voice Beckett knew all too well; the one that comes out when you have to reassure the grieving widow that you're going to bring the people who killed her husband to justice. But Castle wasn't dead. There was still hope. And she didn't care about justice. Right now, all she cared about was finding that antidote.

"Kate, Castle needs to stay calm," McCord said. " Any kind of emotional distress could accelerate the toxin's movement through his system and... kill him faster."

She appreciated her honesty. It didn't make it any easier to hear.

"Mr. Castle will need to be informed so that he can get his affairs in order... just in case," Villante said. "We think it would be best coming from you. We understand if you can't - "

"No," Beckett said softly, but with an edge of determination. "You're right. He needs to hear this from me. Anyone else and he'll panic."

"He should be waking up soon," McCord said.

Beckett tried to keep the accusatory tone out of her voice, but it was difficult to suppress the shock and anger that filled her.  
"Did you drug him?"

"We didn't know if he had been infected yet and we had to protect any classified information he may have been privy to had he been conscious," Vilante said. "But the drugs were harmless; they'll have no impact on the toxins."

She sighed in a pale shadow of relief. So they hadn't made it worse but he could still only have fifteen hours left in his life - less if he got upset.

_So how exactly do you tell someone they're dying without getting them upset?_

* * *

After leaving Villante's office, McCord close behind her, Beckett looked at the image of Castle, unconscious, on the screen, sitting in a chair.

"We thought if he woke up in the infirmary he'd probably freak out even more than he's already going to," McCord said.

Beckett nodded and paused, watching him for a while.  
"He looks so peaceful; like he could be sleeping."

"It's ok if you want to take a few minutes," McCord said.

"Thank you," Beckett said, eyes still glued to the screen.

* * *

When she entered the bathroom, she hoped there was no one else in there; she needed to come to grips with this enough that she could be calm when she told Castle; and she couldn't do that in front of strangers. Beckett checked to make sure all the stalls were empty. Sighing in relief, she turned to the mirror and pulled the chain around her neck out from under her collar, staring at the two symbols of great love in her life. In less than a day, would both these rings come to represent lives she'd lost?

She fingered the ring he'd given her, glad he'd gone for big and extravagant, because that was so... him. And she felt like she was carrying a piece of him around with her, wearing it close to her heart. She dropped it, letting it dangle over her chest, and gripped the basin, trying not to keel over, trying to suppress her anger. Because she was scared, good lord, was she scared, but she was also angry.

Angry at Stack for planting the idea in her head in the first place and setting up the interview. Angry at Gates for putting in a good word for her.

Angry at the deputy Director of the FBI for giving her the job. Angry at her boss for giving her this assignment. Angry at herself for taking the job; for not sending Castle away when he showed up in her house in the middle of the night - as if she could have -; for being careless and dropping that picture; for not protecting him like she was supposed to; for not coming down harder on him and sending him back to New York right away instead of letting him stay one more night; for letting herself fall in love with him in the first place and dragging him into the mess that was her life.

Angry at him for coming to DC to surprise her; for interfering in the investigation and getting himself involved; for going shopping for dinner rather than ordering in; for making her love him so much.

Angry at the security guard for not kicking him out of the golf course. Angry at a dead man for abducting him at gunpoint into his poisonous car.

Angry at whoever invented air vents. Angry at whoever invented cars. Angry at Valkyrie and Dreamworld and chemical toxins. Especially angry at the people behind all this, the reason that he was -

_No._

Her breathing was short, ragged, she could feel a panic attack coming on and she fought it. Forced herself to breathe, took herself through the techniques Dr. Berk had taught her. She would not let herself think the words. She would not let herself believe that he was...

_Dying._

_He's dying._

It was too much and she finally gave in, falling to her knees and breaking down, sobbing.

Any one could walk in right now. She didn't care. She'd almost lost him so many times and she knew how to save him from a bullet but she didn't know how to save him from his own body; his own blood. This thing was eating him from the inside out and there was nothing she could do.

So she let herself cry, let herself release the pain and the fear and the anger, hot tears streaming down her cheeks; choked-out sobs escaping her mouth, the cold hard tiles pressing against her.

Once she was breathing normally, she slowly rose on to shaky legs and splashed cold water onto her face, drying it with a paper towel. Makeup. She needed to reapply her makeup.

She breathed slowly. He needed her. He needed her to be calm. So she would stay calm. If being strong for him would keep him alive just a little longer then she would make herself do it.

She couldn't even think about everything else at stake; of Alexis and Martha and the boys; she just couldn't. Simply thinking of what _she_ would do without him had nearly killed her.

She surveyed herself in the mirror.

_Those are all the tears you're going to get, Castle. You're not leaving me. Not for a very long time._

She was going to tell him; she was going to make sure he was ok, that he had hope; she was going to do whatever she could to save him. Then, once she did save him and she knew he was going to live no matter how stressed he got, she was going to yell at him for being so stupid and stubborn and holding onto something they both agreed to let go of and nearly killing himself in the process.

Because she'd forgiven both of them a lot but she'd never be able to forgive either of them for this. Not if it meant losing him.

And then, after she had ensured that he never did anything like this ever again, she was going to fuck his brains out. She wanted to have him as close as possible; feel his heart beating against hers, the affirmation that he was alive beneath her fingertips, beneath her everything. She wanted him to crawl inside her and never come out. She wanted him with her _always_; to know that he was safe; to be able to protect him from the world and himself. She wanted to show him with her body just how much she loved him, just how much a part of her he was, cover his skin with kisses and soft whispers of her devotion.

She took one last breath and went back out to find her makeup so she could pretend to have it together for him. He couldn't leave her. It just wasn't an option.


End file.
